An Iowa State outreach project dealing with Iowa’s pork industry received a national award on Sept. 22 in Portland, Ore.

ISU’s program, titled “Iowa’s Pork Industry — Dollars and Scents,” was chosen to receive the Outstanding Public Issues Education Program award sponsored by Farm Foundation and the National Public Policy Education Committee, according to a press release.

“We were trying to put issues surrounding the pork industry into perspective,” said John Miranowski, professor of economics and chairman of the economics department.

The award was designed to encourage scholarship and leadership within the community, according to a press release. It recognizes outreach educational programs that demonstrate excellence in scholarship and innovation and provide important public service.

C. Phillip Baumel, professor of economics, said the ISU team held surveys examining what was happening in the industry and what rural Americans thought of the trade-offs between large-scale and small-scale pork production. It also examined how large-scale and small-scale productions affect the environment.

ISU economists wrote 11 papers that were published this January in a 52-page book.

“I wrote a paper called ‘Analyzing the Costs and Benefits,'” Miranowski said. “It was an attempt to pull together the cost and benefits of the preceding 10 chapters.”

The material also was published in three Iowa agriculture magazines.

“We put the articles in a briefer form and sent them to Wallaces Farmer, Iowa Pork Today by the Iowa Pork Producers Association, and the Farm Bureau Spokesman,” Baumel said.

On Jan. 6, the team presented its materials over the Iowa Communications Network to 575 people in 27 sites in Iowa, Baumel said.

“The presentations were broadcast from a site at the [Veterinary Medicine College],” he said. “After each presentation we held local discussions lead by the extension field staff.”

Miranowski said the pork industry adds $3 billion to the state’s gross national product every year.

“Eighty-nine thousand people work within the pork industry in Iowa,” he said. “And 30 percent of the agriculture sales come from pork production.”

Baumel believes the award does not only belong to the 19 people who participated in developing the project, but to three other organizations as well.

“[It also] belongs to the university Extension, the College of Agriculture and the Department of Economics,” he said.